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The Chou Dynasty [of Empress Wu]

Richard W. L. Guisso

The Chou dynasty, which lasted from October 690 to February 705, was one of the shortest in Chinese history. The restoration of the T’ang, moreover, occurred not with the death of the Empress Wu but with her deposition. Why, after capping so long and successful a political career with China’s only female usurpation, did Wu Tse-tien end her career in failure? But, one may ask, was this denouement actually a failure? Was the empress, first of all, attempting to establish a dynasty which would endure for the conventional “myriad generations”? In all likelihood, it seems not. I stated earlier that her loyalty to the T’ang, or at least to its aims and achievements, was genuine, and that her regency and possibly her usurpation were undertaken in response to perceived crises. Beyond this she seems to have given signs at the dynastic changeover that the T’ang was not to be deprived permanently of the empire, and that her aim was to legitimate her own reign rather than to found a dynasty which the Wu clan would continue. These signs were both symbolic and substantive, and the first of them appeared at the very moment of the founding since there is no evidence that Jui-tsung formally abdicated. Since the third century AD dynastic founders had invariably used ritual abdication as a formal preface to the transfer of power,1 and thus from the beginning the source of the Chou mandate was questionable. In substan- tive terms, it is important to note further that Jui-tsung was immediately de- clared his mother’s successor, and although his title was huang-ssu rather than

Source: “The Chou Dynasty,” in Richard W. L. Guisso, Wu Tse-t’ien and the Politics of Legitimation in T’ang China, Bellingham: Program in East Asian Studies, Western Washington University, 1978, 126–54.

1 The question of ritual abdication is discussed by Carl Leban in a paper titled “The accession of Ssu-man Yen, ad 265: Legitimation by ritual replication” (Asilomar, 1975). In the case of the Chou, it is important to note that the annals of the empress in both T’ang histories state simply that she “raised her title” to emperor, and Ssu-ma Kuang records that “the empress- dowager accepted (k’o) the request of the emperor and the ministerial body … and elevated her title to sheng-shen huang-ti.” TCTC 204, p. 6467. Jui-tsung does not seem to have signed the petition which requested the foundation of the Chou, but rather to have asked simply that his surname be changed from Li to Wu. TCTC, loc cit. In 705 the CTS, HTS, and TCTC use the term ch’uan-wei, “transmit the throne” for Chung-tsung’s reassumption of the position of emperor.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���9 | doi:��.��63/9789004380158_014 The Chou Dynasty [of Empress Wu] 405 t’ai-tzu,2 and although he had adopted the Wu surname, he held his position until 698, and then it was his elder brother Chung-tsung who replaced him.3 Although the latter also accepted the Wu surname, contemporaries must have seen this as simple expediency, and the important fact is that throughout the Chou the succession never left the hands of the Li. The ambitions of certain members of the Wu clan were to make the succession question the most acri- monious and bloody of the period but, as I shall show, the empress only briefly considered the possibility of a Wu successor. She may in fact have anticipated both the struggle and its form, since even prior to the restoration she began to construct a close web of familial relationships between the Wu and Li clans,4 and was to continue to do so in subsequent years. In 699 she formalized this policy by having the leading members of both clans swear an oath of concord at the ming-t’ang.5 A second important sign which pointed throughout the dynasty to the like- lihood of a T’ang restoration was the lack of genuine instructional-symbolic innovation by the empress. In this she broke the well-defined pattern both of conquering dynastic founders like Han Kao-tsu and usurpers who planned an enduring dynasty like Sui Wen-ti. We find, for instance, no new law code, the foundation of no institutions of lasting importance, and no attempt at widespread social reform. With few exceptions, even the ritual coloration of the Chou varied little from the T’ang, and though red banners replaced the yellow of T’ang,6 and “Wu” replaced “T’ang” in place names throughout the empire, court dress and ceremonial, official titles and office names remained largely unchanged after 690. In view of the empress’ demonstrated concern with ritual and nomenclature, it is particularly striking that she seems never to have chosen a “virtue and element” (te-yün) for the Chou.7 Chung-tsung, as we have noted, could remark at the restoration that the empress “did not disregard

2 CTS 6:3076:1, HTS 4:3641:3, and TCTC 204, p. 6467. Jui-tsung’s heir was at the same time made huang-sun. 3 Notes 124 and 139 below. 4 Some of these relationships are outlined in Ch’en, “Hun-yin chi-t’uan,” and Fitzgerald, Empress Wu, p. 147. See also TCTC 204, pp. 6466–67 for T’ai-p’ing’s marriage to the empress’ nephew and the conferral of the Wu surname on the Ch’ien-chin princess in 690 just prior to the usurpation. 5 TCTC 206, p. 6540. 6 HTS 4:3641:1 and TCTC 204, p. 6470. 7 Professor Hok-lam Chan has recently pointed out to me that the T’ang did not formally adopt the earth power until 750. Since this is the case, we might assume that the empress had no need to formally choose an element for her dynasty. On the other hand, the tradition of doing so had become well-established in the period of division, and in the early T’ang there were